Recurrence Interval
by wealhtheow21
Summary: After the battle comes the peace. All is well in Erebor. But there is a sadness in Kili that was not there before their journey. A sadness, and something else, too - for problems imperfectly solved may recur, and always when least expected.
1. Chapter 1

It was slow to start, and perhaps that was why it progressed so far before Fili truly understood what was happening. Perhaps - and perhaps it was not. For in those years after the battle, there was a peace that had not been known for many, many years in the northern reaches of Rhovanion. Peace because the Grey Mountains were clear of orcs, aye, but peace, too, between the Lonely Mountain and the Greenwood, peace between Erebor and the men of Esgaroth, peace between the King under the Mountain and the Lord of the Iron Hills. Oh, they were watchful, it was true - dwarves are always slow to trust in good fortune - but it was easy to think that nothing could strike at them there, in their mountain that they had won through the sweat of their brows and the blood in their veins. It was easy to think that if anything were to threaten them, they would have warning enough that it could never truly hurt them.

But warning they had, and they did not see it. Perhaps in the end it would have availed them nothing, even if they had.

* * *

After the battle, it seemed to the dwarves of Erebor that they had lost their king and his heirs both, in one day a destruction of all their hopes. But Thorin Oakenshield did not die, though he came perilously close, and when he woke, it was to sit by his nephews' bedside, not to visit them in their graves.

Fili was the more grievously wounded. Dwalin had snatched him from the battlefield before ever Thorin fell, had felt the flutter of a heartbeat under his skin when his brother and uncle had given him up for lost. Dwalin had staunched the bleeding from the wound in his back and borne him away before the last of the life in him could slip out through the tears in his skin. And yet, he had been sorely injured, both by the orcish blade and the fall, and Oin could say nothing of whether he would live or die, but the grim set of his face gave Thorin little to hope for.

Kili, Oin said, should wake, though whether he would be whole and sound once his wounds were healed was less certain. Gored through the belly, and a deep gash across his knee that had laid the bone open. But he was past the worst of it, and should wake - should have woken already - and so Thorin waited, waited for it to happen. But Kili followed his brother in all things. Thorin had always been glad of it, for alone, Kili was perilously cheerful, always sure that nothing could harm him, never stopping to think of the consequences. But he looked to his brother, always, always, and Fili, though he was quieter, though he spoke up less boldly and stepped out less recklessly, though he seemed always the more diffident, the less brightly coloured - Fili could rein his brother in with a twitch of his mouth and a raise of his eyebrow. Though it was Kili who proclaimed his mind for all to hear, it was Fili who led the way. And Thorin had been glad, glad that Fili had come first, glad that Kili always followed after. Glad, until this day, when Fili lay still and pale and would not wake, and Kili, who followed his brother in all things, lay silent beside him.

Thorin sat. He waited. He attended to what matters he could, with his energy still short and his body weak and his mind hopelessly distracted. He laid his seal to decrees, and administered justice, and made arrangements for the coming winter. But above all, at all moments, whatever else he was doing, he waited.

He waited.

* * *

Bilbo came to him on the fifth day. Not the first time, of course - the hobbit had been present when Thorin awoke, and had made himself indispensable in the days since, had worn the air of deference that was befitting their respective stations, and yet had not hesitated to make sure Thorin knew his mind at all times. _Polite_, he called himself. _Oh yes, Thorin, we hobbits are very polite, you know_. And yet, under that unfailing politeness was a remarkable will. And now, on this fifth day since Thorin had awoken, Bilbo came to him in his chamber, bowing as though he was truly one of Thorin's subjects, as though he had any intention of allowing himself to be bound by Thorin's decrees.

"Tauriel is here to see you," he said.

Thorin frowned and shook his head. "I do not know the name," he said.

"The elf," Bilbo replied. "She was captain of the guard in Mirkwood."

This had Thorin's frown turning to a scowl. "And why should Thranduil send his captain to seek an audience?" he said. "Does he think himself so fine that he cannot come himself, or at least send one of royal blood?"

"Oh, ah," Bilbo said, "it seems she is not captain any more. I'm not really sure what she is, now. But she comes of her own accord, Thorin. She wants to know about Kili."

Thorin could make no sense of this information. Why should an elf care about Kili? He remembered perhaps that they had spoken, in Mirkwood, Kili and the red-haired guard. But that had been many days ago - why then should this elf have the temerity to come and ask after his nephew? "Send her away," he said. "Tell her not to return unless her king wills it."

Bilbo stood in the doorway. Unfailingly polite, hobbits were. And yet, this one had a way of making his mind known.

"And why should I not send her away?" Thorin asked at last, exasperated by Bilbo's silent disapproval. "What is she to me? Or to Kili, for that matter?"

"Well, I rather think," Bilbo began, "I rather think they - well they liked each other, didn't they? They were always smiling at each other, even when he was in prison and she was the jailer. And she was the one who was with him when he was injured. She brought him down from Ravenhill. She only wants to know how he fares, Thorin. Don't you think it would be kind to speak to her?"

Thorin rose to his feet. His nephews lay in the next chamber, still unto death. And here, this elf - this elf who had smiled at Kili when she was his _jailer_, this elf who came here without invitation - and here, this elf, who Thorin had given barely a thought to, but who, it seemed, had beguiled his young, foolish nephew while Thorin himself had his thoughts turned elsewhere - this elf, whose face he could not even remember, waited for him to tell her personally of the wounds Kili had suffered.

"Aye," he said. "I will speak to her."

* * *

She was young, Thorin saw when he entered into the chamber where she had been left to wait. He remembered, now, the smallest glimpses - a flash of red hair from the corner of his eye, a conversation at the other end of their jail whose words he had not cared to listen to. So little impression had this elf made, and yet, if Bilbo spoke the truth, she had opened a trap for his foolish nephew and he had fallen in without a second thought. Elves were ever treacherous.

"Your majesty," she said as he entered, bowing her head and lowering her eyes with a grace that no dwarf ever showed. "I thank you for agreeing to speak with me."

"Perhaps you will not, when you have heard what I have to say," Thorin replied.

She raised her head, then, this elf - the name Bilbo had uttered had already slipped from his mind - and face, already pale, blanched further. "He is not dead?" she said.

Her features were fine, but expressive in a way that was not common for elves, and Thorin saw now how she could so easily have turned the head of his thoughtless, foolish nephew, who loved and hated with everything he was, who wore his feelings upon his skin where most dwarves tucked them deep away lest they be too easily injured. And yet, he was not deceived, nor could he be swayed from his path.

"He is well enough," he said. "But he does not wish to see you."

The elf stood firm, her back straight, her jaw set. The stance of a soldier. Now she understood: Thorin was not her friend. He was her enemy.

"Can he not come and tell me that himself, if he is better?" she asked. Her tone was careful, respectful. And yet her eyes were forthright, appraising. This elf, who had beguiled his nephew.

"He does not care to," Thorin said.

She waited, the elf, for something more. But he did not speak, and at last she nodded.

"Then will you give him something from me?" she asked. She held out her hand and uncurled her fingers. On her palm lay a runestone, smooth and round, glowing with the secretive colours that Mahal had woven into the very rock from which it was hewn. Thorin knew it well: it had once belonged to his sister.

"Aye," Thorin said, speaking nothing of the fury that boiled in his heart at the sight of his sister's gift lying in the hand of this elf. "I am sure he will want this returned to him." And he took the stone, and gestured to the door. "I will make sure you go safe on your journey," he said. "I will escort you to the bounds of my kingdom."

She bowed her head. "My thanks, your majesty," she said. There was nothing in her tone or her face to suggest she was anything but sincere, and yet Thorin knew without doubt that her heart raged against him. And that was as it should be. He had spoiled whatever plans she had with regard to his nephew, and he would see that she had not the chance to make any further attempts on Kili's affections. Rage she might, but she would not win, not in his kingdom, not with his own flesh and blood.

When she had gone, he stood at the boundary stone and curled his fingers around the smooth stone in his pocket. Perhaps he could not protect his nephew from the sleep that had dragged him into its endless embrace, but this: this he could do for him.

* * *

Fili was the more grievously wounded - and yet also the first to wake, gasping a breath into his lungs as if he had thought he would never have the chance again. Thorin took him by the hand, fixing his eyes on that face that he had feared might remain still and pale until the remaking of the world. It was a grimace that Fili wore now, and yet Thorin would take the worst scowl over the empty serenity of those long, silent days.

"My nephew," he whispered, hardly remembering how to use his voice. His own injuries prevented him from leaning to press his forehead against Fili's, and so he was forced to content himself with a hand on his nephew's cheek, to feel the warmth of life below his skin.

Fili stared up at him, gasping. His eyes were unfocussed. And then they were not, and he tried to reach up, to grasp at Thorin, though his arm had no strength in it. Fear was on his face, and his mouth moved, though no sound was heard.

"What is it?" Thorin asked. "What ails you?"

But when Fili's lips moved again, it became clear, and Thorin took his hand from Fili's and placed both hands on his nephew's face, turning his head gently so that he could see Kili lying in the bed beside him.

"He is there," Thorin said. "He is not dead. Perhaps now you have awakened, he will follow you."

Fili stared, his shaking hand inching across the gap between Kili and himself. Thorin took it up in his own, and laid it upon Kili's chest, so that Fili could feel the heart beat, slow but true. He had pressed his own hand there often enough in the days since he woke. He understood.

"Kili," Fili whispered. "Wake up."

But Kili did not.

* * *

It is one thing to survive terrible wounds; it is another to recover from them. Many days it took, Fili and Thorin both, and many times they rose too fast and worked too hard and found themselves failed by their own bodies. Unaccustomed to frailty, Thorin grew grim and short of temper. Fili, though, found his frustration at his own shortcomings less important than his frustration at his brother. For the days passed, and Kili's wounds healed by slow degrees, and yet still he did not wake.

"He did not even hit his head," he said one day, when Oin once again found himself unable to explain why Kili did not open his eyes. "You told me that, did you not? It was a belly wound, a leg wound. Not his head."

"Aye, I said that," Oin replied. "But the mind is not as simple as the body, lad. He doesn't want to wake, that's all I can think. There's nothing else it could be."

"That cannot be," Fili replied. Kili, Fili's brother, who flung himself from his bed every day in pursuit of whatever the world could offer him. Kili, who suffered from excess of enthusiasm but never laziness. Kili, who could never bear to lie abed even when he was young and sick and had not the strength to rise. No, it could not be, it was something else.

"He is bewitched," Thorin said. He sat at Kili's bedside, pale and glowering. Fili knew why, knew what he saw: Kili's wounds were healing, but he was wasting away. They fed him as much as they could, but a few mouthfuls of broth a day could not sustain a grown dwarf, even one who did nothing but lie still. He was thin, thinner than Fili had ever seen him, and Fili knew, with a dread that he had not felt in his life before, not even when he felt the blade of Azog the man-killer pierce his skin, that if Kili did not wake soon, he would never wake at all.

"Nonsense," Oin cried. "By who? Who would bewitch him?"

"The elf," Thorin said. "The red-haired elf. She was with him. She brought him to you."

"She helped us," Fili said. "When he was ill, in Laketown. She helped us." He stared at his brother, the gaunt arms, the hollow cheeks. "Who will help us now?" he asked.

But Thorin did not answer.

* * *

And so it came to pass that one night, weeks after the battle that had not taken their lives, Fili could no longer bear this dread that lay upon him and poisoned all his days and nights. For weeks he had begged his brother, had whispered to him at night and pleaded with him by day. _Wake up_, he had said. _Wake up, wake up_. But Kili only lay, stubborn and silent and not the brother Fili loved, too pale, too still, too quiet. Until a night when Fili found himself alone and overwhelmed, and he seized his brother by the shoulders and shook him. No gentle touch, this, but a furious, desperate jerking that had Kili's head rolling on his neck as though he were made of rags.

"Wake up," Fili said. "Wake up. Wake up. Wake up wake up _wake up wake up_."

Kili's head rolled on his neck, his arms trembled and shook at his sides, and it was a moment and more than a moment before Fili, in his grief, realised that their trembling was not only due to his violent shaking of his brother, before he understood that the twitching and jerking of Kili's fingers meant something different, something else. He stopped, his hands still clenched on his brother's shoulders, and stared.

Kili's fingers twitched. And he opened his eyes.

"Kili?" Fili whispered, his breath caught in his throat. "Kili?"

Kili blinked up at him for a long, blank moment. Then his fingers twitched again.

"You're not dead," he said, his voice barely there, a hoarse thread. He stared at Fili, and then tried to turn his head, but seemed not to have the strength. "Am I dead?"

Fili, who had with every passing day felt more of his own strength return to him, now dropped his head as all of it slipped away again. He dropped his head and pressed it against his Kili's chest, feeling the beat of his Kili's heart against his forehead.

"No, my brother," he said, his throat choked with the magnitude of his relief. "You are not dead. You are not dead."

Kili, it seemed, tried to embrace him. But his arms had not the power, and at last, he reached up and grasped at one of Fili's braids, holding it with a feeble grip that nonetheless tugged and pulled against Fili's scalp until tears rose to his eyes.

He let them come.

* * *

Kili was weak in a way he had not been since he was barely out of infancy. He could not rise from the bed, could barely lift his arms or head. His cheeks were hollow, eyes shadowed, his hair lank and greasy. But he was not dead.

"Food," Oin declared as soon as he arrived. "Food is what he needs now." And he glared at Kili. "Stubborn lad, why you could not wake before you were skin and bone, I've no idea."

Kili stared back, but seemed to comprehend little of what Oin said. It seemed to Fili that he was barely clinging to wakefulness, his fingers lax in Fili's grip.

"Do not sleep yet, my brother," Fili murmured. He felt half-awake himself, exhaustion dragging at him, his injuries still not forgotten and weeks of worry and sleepless nights hanging from him like a stoneweight. "Oin says you must eat."

"I'm not hungry," Kili whispered. Although he had drunk some water, his voice still seemed worn to nothing, as though its long disuse had led to it slipping away entirely.

"You will eat," Thorin said. He stood in the doorway, as he had since he sent Bilbo to fetch some broth. His eyes had not left Kili since first he was roused from sleep by Fili's quiet sobs. Kili, though, seemed far less aware of Thorin, and now he turned his head sluggishly and stared for long, slow seconds before looking back at Fili.

"It's Thorin," he whispered. "It's Uncle Thorin."

"Yes," Fili said, smiling with a determination he hoped did not show on his face. "He's very glad you're awake at last."

Kili blinked slowly. "Am I awake?" he asked.

Fili closed his eyes and swallowed his fear. Kili was not dead, and that was all that mattered. He was confused, certainly, but it could come as no surprise. He had barely eaten for weeks. He would be better when he had eaten. Surely he would be better.

"Well, here we are!" came a new voice, and Fili lifted his head to see Bilbo bustling in with an air of most emphatic cheerfulness about him. Behind him came Bombur, carrying an entire cauldron of broth.

"I didn't know how much you would want," he explained, setting the cauldron down. "He's naught but bones, after all."

"It's not something that can be so easily reversed," Oin said. But he took up the bowl that Bombur held out to him and sat on the bed, holding out a spoonful of broth to Kili. "Eat, lad," he said.

Kili's eyes drifted to Oin's face, and then to the spoon. "I'm not hungry," he whispered. "You can have my share."

"Kili," Fili said, "you must eat."

Kili was silent for long enough that Fili found himself checking to see he was still awake. At last, though, his eyes drifted back to Fili. "I'm tired," he whispered.

Thorin left his place in the doorway, then, and took up the spoon and the bowl from Oin. "You will eat," he said. Here was a dwarf who had cowed men and orcs both with the mere force of his scowl, and now he turned all this redoubtable power onto his nephew. "You will eat, or I will know why."

Kili seemed briefly startled, as though he had forgotten that Thorin was in the room at all. But when once the awareness of his uncle had returned to him, so the awareness of what it meant that his uncle should frown so seemed to return with it, and he opened his mouth meekly, and accepted the spoonful of broth, and swallowed seemingly with little difficulty. But when he had taken two spoonfuls, his face changed, and the dazed blankness that was the only expression he had worn since he awoke dissolved into a grimace of pain.

"Oh," he whispered.

"What is it?" Fili asked, leaning forward until he was reminded by the ache in his back that he was not yet healed himself. "Kili?"

Kili turned despairing eyes upon him. "I'm hungry," he whispered. "I'm so h- I'm so - Fili, Fili, I-"

"Then eat," Fili said, turning his brother's face back towards Thorin. "Then eat, my brother."

And Kili ate, spoonful after spoonful, his hand twitching and writhing in Fili's as if, had he only the strength, he would have wrested the bowl from Thorin and swallowed it down in one great gulp. But he had not the strength, and after less than half of the bowl was gone, Oin raised a hand and called a halt.

"No more for now," he said. "We can't have it coming back up."

Thorin set the bowl aside, and Kili made a noise of great grief and tried to sit up, failing before he had even lifted his head from the pillow.

"But," he whispered, "but please, but please-"

"Kili," Thorin said, placing a hand on Kili's chest, and he spoke with a gentleness such as he rarely employed. "You may eat again soon."

"Very soon," Oin said. "Every hour, five or six mouthfuls. That's how we'll get you well, lad. There are no swift remedies for what you have done to yourself."

Kili let out a sigh, and his fingers tightened around Fili's.

"Hush, brother," Fili murmured to him. "We will get you well. We will get you well."

And for the first time since he awoke and found himself alone, he truly let himself believe it.

* * *

It was not something so easily reversed, this starvation that Kili had suffered. Nor, indeed, was the fear that had lived in Fili's heart those many quiet days easily buried and forgotten, even when the colour began to return to his brother's cheeks and he was able to sit up without dizziness or nausea. Rarely were they separated in those first days after Kili woke, and since Kili could not move from the bed, this meant that Fili rarely left their bedroom, either. There was little to say between them, and little strength to say it with. But there was much to do: every hour Kili had to eat, and Fili took it upon himself to know exactly what and exactly when, to wake his brother from silent, pale sleep and feed him exactly the amount Oin advised, and not a drop more, to harden his heart against Kili's breathless pleas. Perhaps it was a dreary task, and then, perhaps Fili was pleased to have a reason to wake his brother, to shake him out of his silence and stillness - for Kili had never been silent and still, neither asleep nor awake, and every time he slipped back into slumber, a small voice in Fili's heart nagged at him, saying _he is gone again, he is gone and this time he will not come back_.

It was on the fourth day that Thorin sent Fili to sleep in his bedroom. Protestations there were in plenty, but Thorin would not be moved, and, once he had promise faithfully to feed Kili when it was necessary to do so, Fili could invent no more excuses to remain at his brother's side, and was forced at last to stumble away. He slept before ever his head hit the pillow, and Thorin, who had followed him to assure himself that his orders would be carried out, covered him with a blanket and blew out the lamp before returning to his other nephew to find him awake.

"Thorin," he said, his voice still a shadow of its former self. "Fili-?"

"Asleep," Thorin said.

Kili nodded. "Good," he replied. "I think he's falling ill. He looks so pale."

"Not ill," Thorin said. "Only tired. He does not let himself rest."

"Oh," Kili said, staring at the ceiling with a weary frown. "I didn't know. I rest all the time."

"And that is why he does not," Thorin said. But he saw how this drew worry to Kili's face, and sought a new subject of conversation. "Oin tells me you are eating stew now."

Stew, it seemed, held little interest for Kili. He stared still upwards, as if he saw something in the shadows above that Thorin could not. "I thought he was dead," he said. "I saw him fall. I don't- remember the battle, not really. I remember him falling. I was sure he was dead."

"Aye," Thorin said. He remembered it, too, that certainty that he had lost his nephew, that desperate fear that he hid from himself with a torrent of fury. "But he is strong. You are both strong."

"I don't remember how I-" Kili said, and then turned to frown at Thorin. "Azog?"

"Dead," Thorin said. "He could not stand against my blade."

"And the other?" Kili asked. "There was another, was there not?"

"Aye, another, and just as dead as the first," Thorin replied. "By your hand, if they tell it true."

Kili's frown deepened, and he returned his gaze to the ceiling. "Not me," he said. "I don't think - no. But - I thought she was there. Maybe I dreamed it."

"You did not," Thorin said. He took from his pocket the stone the red-headed elf-woman had given to him, and held it out to his nephew. Best he know now, so that this foolishness could be more quickly forgotten. "Take this."

Kili raised a hand - still weak, beset with tremors - and took the stone, turning it over in his fingers. "Tauriel," he murmured.

"Aye, that was her name that gave it," said Thorin.

Kili's eyes grew large in his head. "You spoke to her?"

"I did," Thorin replied.

"And - you are not angry?"

"There is no sense being angry now," Thorin said. "The thing is done, and forgotten. Your mother's stone is returned, and I think that you will not so easily part with it again." And here he fixed Kili with a look that was stern and gentle in equal measure, for he could not but forgive his nephew his foolishness when it had been so amply punished by fortune.

"Forgotten," Kili echoed, all but whispering the word. "Then there was no message? She did not wish to speak to me?"

"You slept still," Thorin said. "And perhaps it seemed to her that the stone was message enough."

Kili's fingers curled around the stone, his hand falling back to land on the bed. He blinked once, and again.

"Yes," he said. "It is message enough."

* * *

Slowly the days of winter passed, and with them passed Fili's pain, and Kili's weakness, until spring found them all but recovered, standing on their own two feet and no longer excused their duties, though they left their heavier weapons to the side of the sparring ring. And duties they had in plenty, for the mountain grew every day more alive, more alike to how it had been in the days before the dragon came, but still there were many miles to go, many steps to take. There were days when neither saw the other until evening, a thing that once might have been unimaginable and yet now was unavoidable.

And yet, still there was time for leisure, if only snatched in the spaces between, and as the days grew longer and the snow began to creep silently back up the mountain, leaving rivulets of clear cold water and freshly sprouting jewel-green grass in its wake, Kili's steps were ever drawn to the mountain slopes, under the great blue dome of the sky. It was there that Fili found him in late June, sprawled amongst the glowing flowers of summer, watching something far below them where the River Running wound its silver road to the Long Lake.

"There you are," Fili said, dropping to sit beside his brother. "I've been looking everywhere."

"If you'd looked everywhere, you'd have found me," Kili said.

"I did find you," Fili replied. It was an old game of theirs, and yet never ceased to be fresh. Kili laughed, and leaned back on his elbows on the steep slope. But still he stared out over the plains of Dale, and his smile was not as bright as was usual for him.

"We had an adventure," he said, after some moments of silence. "A real one."

"We did, at that," Fili said. "Hard won it was, too."

"You almost died," Kili said. He shivered a little, though the sun was warm and the sky deep and blue and cloudless.

"Not just me," Fili said. "And not just once." For he still had not forgotten the way his brother writhed and howled in Bard's house above the lake, how close he had come to death then, before ever they set foot in their mountain.

Perhaps Kili was remembering the same thing, for his smile faded and he sat up, pressing his fingers into the grass. "Do you ever think about the people we met?" he said. "Beorn and Radagast and - do you ever wonder what they're doing?"

"Aye, sometimes," Fili said, though he knew where his brother's thoughts lay, and it was not with Beorn or Radagast. "I hope they are happy, and wish us well."

A silence grew between them, until at last Kili spoke again. "I thought she would tell me herself," he said. "I thought - I know I was asleep for a long time, but I thought there was something. That she would at least tell me herself."

"Perhaps she thought it would be easier for both of you if she did not," Fili said.

"Perhaps," Kili said. He plucked a buttercup from the grass and tore it, petal by petal, until naught was left but the green stem, headless and rootless.

"There will be another for you, brother," Fili said. "Shorter, and with more hair on her face."

Kili snorted, and then he leaned forward, eyes narrowing against the light. "Do you see that?" he said.

Fili turned to look, and saw a caravan, wagons and horses and some afoot, drawing into view along the road that led to the Great Gate.

"I've been watching them for an hour," Kili said. "I think-" And here he leaned further, as if those few inches closer could make the features of the travellers clearer. "It is," he whispered. "Fili, Fili! It's mother!"

"Mother," Fili breathed, and then he found himself hauled to his feet by his laughing brother, and they were running, running to meet their mother who they had not seen for a year and more.

So it was that Dis, daughter of Thrain, son of Thror came at last to the Lonely Mountain, and if there had been peace and cheerfulness before, now it was doubled and tripled. And perhaps that is why no-one heeded the warnings until the danger was already upon them.

Perhaps it would not have availed them if they had.


	2. Chapter 2

Fili was pierced in the back, and on some nights he lay awake, eyes watering with the ache of it, even though he knew he was long healed. He did not know if it was real, this pain of his, or only a memory. He did not know if it mattered. And when winter drew near, a year now since the battle and the long, slow awakening thereafter, the ache only grew stronger, until some nights he did not sleep at all.

It was something he had heard about since he was barely able to walk. A scraped knee, a bruised hand, and his mother's voice, warm and gentle in his ear. And then, later, his uncle - stern as always, but his uncle nonetheless, feared and loved in equal measure - his uncle examining the injury with a sombre face and sitting back, fixing him with a steady gaze.

"You must be brave, my nephew," he would say.

And always, always, Dwalin beside him, black eyebrows bristling, laughing at his solemn face. "Wait till you're my age, laddie," he would say. "Then you'll be able to tell the weather from the aches in your body."

In those days, it seemed absurd to him, that his body, young and strong and so quick to recover from any mishap, would one day be so, that it would be hurt and would never fully heal. But now, on nights when Fili could not sleep, he would rise sometimes and go to look out at the sky, to see the clouds gathering and feel the breath of the coming rain in his aching back. He had not needed to wait until he was Dwalin's age to learn what it was like to be forever marked. He had always been a fast learner.

Fili was injured in the back, but Kili was injured in the belly and the knee. He complained no more than Fili did, but he limped, now, sometimes barely at all, sometimes - on days when the coming rain breathed its misty breath into Fili's wounds - enough that his footsteps made a strange, syncopated echo in the splendid passageways of their mountain. Oin frowned to watch him pass, and heated stones in the fire, wrapping them in towels and giving them not just to Kili, but to Fili, too.

"No sense suffering more than you need to," he said, and neither of them disagreed.

"If it didn't wake us up, we wouldn't be out here to see the stars," Kili would say, finding Fili on the balcony and pressing a warm hand to his back.

"I thought you didn't like the stars," Fili said. Kili had never cared to look too long on them when he was a child, saying that they made him feel small and cold and alone.

But they were not children any more, and now Kili gazed upon the stars with a strange expression on his face, not frightened any more, but eager and sad in equal measure.

"Things are different, now," he said.

And so they were.

* * *

Winter passed by, and spring came again to the mountain. The snows once more crept upwards, ever upwards, and the flowers of the upper slopes bloomed low to the ground, yet hardy and bursting with life, as if imitating the mountain's other inhabitants. The ache in Fili's back receded with the coming of warmer weather, but Kili still limped, as though the mists of winter had settled deep into his bones. He no longer looked to Oin to give him heated stones, for Fili kept a pile of them ever in the grand fireplace of their apartments, and gave orders that the fire should not be allowed to go out. It was a help at night, but there was no help in the daytime, not from Oin and not from Kili himself.

"You worry too much," Kili said, time and again. "I am hardly the first warrior to walk with a limp."

And it was true enough - Fili did worry, ever and always. It had been his burden, since first he grew to understand what it was to love someone and to lose them, to lie awake at night and fear that one day they might disappear. It had been his burden since the day his father left with a laugh and a kiss to his mother's bulging stomach, and never came back to meet his second son. Long had he struggled after the battle, after waking to watch his brother silently waste away, and he struggled still, struggled not to touch Kili at every opportunity, to assure himself that he was still there. And it was this, in the end, that led to Kili choosing to sleep in a room alone, he who had never done so through all of their lives; this that led to Fili holding himself back, biting his tongue, clenching his fists, holding his worry in check so as not to drive his brother further away from him.

It was this that led to Fili rarely touching his brother, and it was that, in the end, that led to everything else.

* * *

At night, Fili was awoken by the sound of Kili tossing and turning. Not one night, nor two, and not fewer as winter receded, but more. At night, Fili rose from his bed and went to the fireplace, wrapped hot stones in thick, soft cloth and brought them back to his brother. In the winter, Kili thanked him, but as spring came, his face began to grow stormy.

"It's nothing," he said, and later, "you don't have to always - I can take care of myself."

"Then why don't you?" Fili asked, temper worn thin by lack of sleep. "I can't help it if you keep waking me up."

And the next day, Fili came home to find that Kili's bed was gone, moved into a room on the other side of their apartments.

"I didn't mean that," he said when Kili came back. "I don't mind when you wake me up."

Kili nodded. "All the same," he said. He made for the new room - too big, unused for decades, cold and empty and not like Kili at all - and Fili rose to his feet, reached out to touch his brother. But Kili twisted just so to stay out of his grasp, and Fili felt something cold and unfamiliar settle in his gut.

"We're too old to sleep in the same room, anyway," Kili said.

Perhaps Kili was. But Fili, who had never slept alone in all the long years since his brother had been born, stared at the ceiling of his chambers that night and thought that he was not.

* * *

As spring grew bright and full and trailed its green fingers across the grey walls of the mountain, Fili's mother called him to her chambers. Rich they were, the same rooms she had had as a child, glittering with stones of all colours, warm with tapestries and a great fire roaring in the fireplace. They felt like her, felt like a place to live, in a way that Fili and Kili's apartments no longer did - and perhaps never had.

"You have quarrelled with your brother," his mother said to him.

Fili frowned at this. "No," he said. "Did he tell you that?"

"He tells me nothing," his mother replied. "As if he thinks, somehow, that I do not know him better than he knows himself." She fixed him with her steady gaze, the gaze he had known all his life, that told him she would not let him go until she had what she wanted. "So then tell me, my son - if you have not quarrelled, then why does he wander the world like a grim ghost? I have never known him to be so gloomy for longer than it took for you to forgive whatever foolish thing he had done."

Fili sank into a chair and shook his head. He had asked himself the same question, but had never yet found an answer. "I have nothing to forgive," he said. "We have not quarrelled. I think - he was displeased with me for being too concerned for his health. But that was weeks ago, now." Weeks ago, but Kili had not come back to sleep in the chamber they had shared for a year and more, and Fili had stopped reaching out to touch him for fear of kindling his anger against him.

"His health?" his mother asked. "But he is not unwell, I hope? I have seen no sign."

"His leg troubles him," Fili said. "Or did. Perhaps it is better now. We have not spoken about it."

They had not spoken about it, nor about any other matter, save the simplest and least interesting of topics. The life of a prince was a busy one, filled with responsibility and decorum - yet it was not busy enough for Fili not to notice what was missing from it.

His mother rose from her chair and came to him, bending low to kiss his temple and press her forehead briefly to his.

"Then speak," she said. "We are solemn enough without losing Kili, too, to frowns and dignity."

Fili nodded and rose, but his mother laid her hand on his arm.

"And see Oin," she said. "Your brother is too young and foolish to understand that there is no honour in needless suffering. He needs someone to speak for him, since he will not." She smiled at him, warm but sad, just as she had been all the days of his life. "You will speak for him, Fili."

"Yes, mother," Fili said. "I will."

* * *

"There is nothing more to be done," said Oin. "He is healed, as far as he will heal. He will always have a limp. There is no shame in it."

"But he is in pain," Fili said. He was sure it must be true, sure by the slow fading of the cheerfulness from Kili's face, sure by the way his brother grew quiet and grim and chose to sleep alone. "Can you do nothing for that?"

"He tells me there is no pain," Oin said. "Only stiffness."

"Do you believe him?" Fili asked. "He says what he thinks you wish to hear."

"And because I wish to hear it, it cannot be truth?" Oin asked. He shook his head and pressed Fili's shoulder. "You worry too much, lad. It is a warrior's wound, a badge of pride. And I dare say it will not be his last."

If it had been Oin's design to prevent Fili from worrying, this last pronouncement did little to accomplish it. He remembered, as he sometimes did when his aching back or his brooding mind kept him from sleeping, the stench of blood and death over the battlefield, remembered gazing down on his uncle and Dwalin and knowing as the blade pierced his back that there was nothing he could do to protect them. Dwarves were warriors all, strong and hardy, and the line of Durin more than most - yet Fili had no desire to see war again, not in all his days if he had his way. But for now, at least, they were safe, deep in their mountain, with a peace over the land such as had not been known for many years. It was this that he consoled himself with that night, as he lay and stared at the ceiling, alone in his room as he had never been all the long years since his brother had been born. There could surely be no war, and so they would all be safe, and the worst that could happen to Kili was that his leg would ache when the coming rain brought mists into his bones. It was the mark of a warrior, and Fili could have no objection to that.

* * *

But even if Fili had no objections, he was more than made up for by his brother. As summer began to spread out across the sky, blue and golden and clear, their mother's fear came true, and they quarrelled at last. Fili, who had been asked to speak to his brother, did not take the chance when he had it, and when at last he opened his mouth, it was not to make things better, but only to see them grow worse.

How it happened, Fili did not quite know. It seemed to him that Kili had been spoiling for it, picking at him for days whenever they were together, finding ways to take offence at imagined slights. He had taken the bait, a time or two, and there had been days when he had hardly spoken to his brother at all. And then, at last, Thorin had told them they were to go to Esgaroth, to witness the celebrations of the renaming of the town.

That night, Fili returned to his chambers to find Kili, silent and grim, packing. He was early to return, for he had decided that today he would speak to his brother, as his mother had asked. And yet, he did not speak, but only stood in the doorway of Kili's room, staring as he threw his clothes into a bulging leather sack. Gone was the cheerful, exuberant brother that Fili had known all of his life. Fili could not remember the last time he had seen him smile.

"It will be good for you," he said at last. "Good to get out of the mountain for a while."

Kili turned sharply towards him, starting as if he had not known that Fili was there, though he could hardly have been unaware of it. "Are you watching me?" he said. "Why are you watching me? I know how to prepare for a journey, I don't need you to watch over everything I do."

Fili frowned and shook his head. "I was not watching," he said. "I was only passing by."

Kili turned away again, turned his back to Fili. "You're always passing by," he said. "I want my own room."

"This is your own room," Fili said. He stared at Kili's back, willing him to turn around. Months ago - even weeks ago - he would have stepped forward, taken Kili's arm, pulled him round to face him. But Kili did not like to be touched any more - did not like to be fussed over, as he saw it - and Fili was wary of making matters worse.

"I mean, my own apartments," Kili said to the wall. "Why should we share? There is a whole mountain's worth of space. We're just tripping over each other all the time, it's so stupid."

"We're not-" Fili began, but the words Kili said sank in, deep into him, and he saw what Kili was doing - not packing for a journey, no: packing for a complete removal. Something heavy and cold settled into his gut, and for a moment he could find no words. "I don't trip over you," he said at last.

"I've already asked Thorin," Kili said. "He says I can have Uncle Frerin's rooms." He glanced sideways, not at Fili, but enough so Fili could see his profile, at least, see something of him other than the back of his head.

"You asked Thorin?" Fili asked. "When?"

"Yesterday," Kili replied. "I thought he would be happier. He always says I need to grow up. But he tried to talk me out of it." He turned back to his packing, shoulders hunched. And Fili understood why, all of a sudden, their uncle was sending them to Esgaroth together.

"We can talk about it," he said. "Kili, let us talk on the way to the lake. We will have days to decide what is the best thing to do."

Kili grew still, staring down into his bag. "I think you should go to the lake without me," he said. "There is no need for both of us to go. One prince of Erebor is enough to keep them happy, surely?"

"Perhaps," Fili said, trying to keep his tone light. "But two would be better, would it not? And besides, we have barely had a chance to see each other for weeks. It will do us good, both of us."

"You see me all the time," Kili said, and now he turned to face Fili, and Fili was dismayed to see accusation in his eyes. "You never leave me alone. You went to _Oin_ about me, as though I am a child!"

Fili knew, then, that he had made a misstep. Kili had ever craved respect, demanded time and again to be treated as an adult, even long before he could claim to be one, even when he behaved like a foolish child. And Fili had learned - had tried to learn - to do just that, to be his brother's protector and yet to let him be his own dwarf. But he had gone to Oin, and Oin had gone to Kili, and Kili was in no mood to be coddled, not these last weeks.

"I see you limping-" he began, but Kili did not allow him to finish, snorting and jerking his bag to his shoulder.

"I had my knee laid open to the bone," he said. "I limp. I will always limp. It is nothing, Fili, _nothing_."

He turned, then, and shoved past Fili where he stood in the doorway. Fili turned, snatching for Kili's arm, only to have it jerked unceremoniously from his grasp.

"Where are you going?" he asked.

"Frerin's rooms," Kili said, already halfway to the door.

"And the lake?" Fili said, aware that his voice had begun to sound plaintive.

Kili paused in the doorway, but he did not look back.

"I have had my fill of that town," he said. "Go without me."

* * *

And so, Fili went.

The town was not the same one he remembered: that one was burned by the dragon, and what little was left of it was rotting beneath the waters of the lake. This town, built further north along the shores of the lake, was a rebirth. Bard, King of Dale, had chosen the site himself - there, where Esgaroth had been in the days of his ancestors. Lake-Town was gone, now, but a new Esgaroth would take its place, just as Dale rose from the ashes. Just as Erebor sprang once more to life.

The town was new, still half-built, the men toiling day and night for months, for years. And yet, there was something about the mist that rose from the lake, something about the dark water that reached up and made the town old before its time. The timbers, that not two years ago had been living trees on the edge of the Greenwood, looked old and weathered, like the hull of a ship. The town was hung about with dank, heavy air, and Fili's back ached without ceasing. He was glad that Kili had not come - so he told himself - for it would not have been easy on him, his knee already a weak point, a sore spot in more ways than one. And glad, too, because as he walked through the streets, he understood what Kili had meant when he said _I have had my fill of that town_. It was not the same town, not even in the same place, and yet everywhere he turned, Fili was reminded of the horror of dragonfire, and before that, the horror of watching his brother writhe and howl, watching his brother die by slow, agonising degrees.

Yes. It was better that Kili had not come.

And he thought so again the next day, when he attended the name-giving ceremony. After all the solemnities were done, and the festivities begun, he stood and smiled and spoke to those he had to speak to, and wondered how soon he could get away from this damp, grim little town, whether he could leave that day or whether he would have to spend another aching night listening to the town creak like a ship. And then he saw her, and all thoughts of anything else fled from his mind.

"Tauriel," he said.

She stood before him, taller even than he remembered, so that he had to crane his neck to look at her. Yet she had seen him first, though he was towered over even by the older children of the town, had sought him out. Why? He could not say.

"Fili," she said, and bowed her head. "Prince Fili."

Fili acknowledged her bow with one of his own. "At your service," he said. She had left while his brother was still asleep unto death, but she had saved Kili's life once, twice, perhaps as many as four times, and Fili would not forget that.

"Are you well?" she asked. She was ill at ease - a strange thing, for an elf - and Fili could not feel coldness towards her, though he tried.

"Much better than when last we were here," he said.

She smiled a little at that, but the smile faded almost as soon as it appeared. "And your brother?" she asked. "He is here, too?"

"Ah - no," Fili said. "He does not care for this place."

"But he recovered from his injuries?" she said. "I heard tell that it was so, but I did not see it with my own eyes."

"No, you did not," said Fili, and now he found the coldness, remembering the hurt on his brother's face, and wondering - not for the first time - if the slow darkness that had claimed him had not been her doing, at least in part . "But he is well. And I must be going."

He bowed again to her and turned abruptly away. Yes, he thought. He would leave today.

* * *

Leave he did, but even with his sojourn in Esgaroth cut short, it was more than a week that he was gone from Erebor. When he returned, it was to be greeted by Bilbo Baggins, who swore every day that he would soon be leaving to return to his own home far to the west, and yet every night found himself still dwelling in the halls of the King under the Mountain.

"Fili!" this little hobbit cried, with a smile of genuine warmth, for he was very fond of all the dwarves, and perhaps of Fili in particular. "How was Lake-Town?"

"It is Esgaroth, now," Fili said, with a smile of his own. "They have renamed it."

"Oh, bother Esgaroth," Bilbo said. "It's still a town on a lake, isn't it?"

"Very much so," Fili said. "And damp, with it."

"Hmph," Bilbo replied, walking with Fili as he made his way deeper into the mountain. "Well, I don't see the attraction, myself. But I thought you went with Kili? Did you leave him there to grow mould?"

"Kili?" Fili asked. "He stayed behind. He did not care to join me."

Bilbo stopped at this, and frowned at him. "Are you sure?" he said. "You usually go everywhere together."

Fili paused in his steps as well, and did not think on the pang that Bilbo's observation caused him, or the empty space at his side that felt emptier every day. "Not this time, my friend," he said. "But surely you noticed he had not left? You must have seen him some time in the last week."

Bilbo shook his head, looking very surprised. "Hide nor hair," he said. "He is being very quiet, apparently. Which is not like him at all, if you don't mind my saying so!"

At another time - in another place - Fili would have laughed at this observation and agreed wholeheartedly. But here and now, faced with the troubling news that his brother had been so solitary as to become invisible, and remembering once again the grim, stone-faced Kili he had left behind him, he could only wonder and worry.

"Perhaps you should talk to him," Bilbo said at last. "It's strange, you know, to see you two going off by yourselves. I'm not sure I like it very much."

"Nor I," said Fili. "I do not like it at all."

* * *

When Fili returned to his apartments, it was to find them cold and empty. No less had he expected, and yet somewhere in his heart it seemed he had still hoped, hoped that Kili might have changed his mind in the week he had been gone, that whatever he had done to so upset his brother might have been forgotten. But Kili's room was empty, the bed gone along with all his belongings, and the hope that Fili had not recognised died a quiet death.

It was an hour or more before he found himself standing before the door of their Uncle Frerin's old rooms. An hour or more, for he had had to wash the dust of the road from his person - and then he had had to scrape together his courage. How strange, that he should be anxious about talking to his brother, his brother, of all people! And yet so it was, for he was weary and dejected, and he feared to be once more sent away with nothing but cold words.

Yet he was of the line of Durin, greatest of all dwarves, and he put his fear away and knocked as firmly as Durin himself might have done.

There was a pause, and then a muffled voice - Kili's voice. "You can leave it outside," he called through the thick wood of the door.

"Kili," Fili called back. "It's me."

Another pause, then, which echoed in Fili's ears until he began to think that Kili would not open the door at all, would simply leave him standing alone in the passageway. And then: a scrape, a creak, and the door opened a little to reveal Kili, standing half in shadow.

"I didn't expect you back yet," he said.

"It wasn't the most festive of festivals," Fili replied. He waited, and Kili waited, too, as if expecting something more. "Then - can I come in?" Fili asked at last. He had not expected a warm greeting, not after the last conversation they had had, and yet this - Kili standing in the shadows, staring at him as if he were a stranger - this was not what he had hoped for at all.

"What?" Kili said, then, "Oh, no, that's - you don't need to. I can manage."

"Manage?" Fili asked. "I don't understand." He reached out to push the door open, laying his hand over Kili's where it clutched the wood. And then he paused, frowning, for it seemed to him that the skin of Kili's hand was rather too warm to the touch.

"Are you unwell, my brother?" he asked, and let go of the door, reaching instead for Kili's forehead. Kili ducked away from him, but Fili was faster, and he pressed his palm to Kili's brow and felt a strange sort of hope. Kili was fevered, that much was clear, and Kili, unwell, was often unpleasant. If Kili had been already sickening when Fili left - perhaps, perhaps that would explain the conversation they had had.

"I'm fine," Kili said. "It's nothing, just a little fever." Still he did not move away from the door, did not let Fili in, and Fili stood and stared.

"Have you seen Oin?" he asked.

"Yes, of course," Kili said. "He said it was nothing. It will go away on its own."

"And has it?" Fili asked. "How long have you been ill?"

"I'm not ill," Kili said. "It's been - a day, no longer. It's nothing. Oin said I should sleep, so why don't you let me be? Can you not go one hour without fussing over me?"

And now Fili felt his heart sink again. Kili had not been ill when he left, and what was more, he was growing angry again now, though Fili could not see what he had done to deserve it. Was it so strange, to worry about his brother? His brother, who hid himself away and answered every question with anger in his voice, though once he had been the most light-hearted dwarf in the world? But now, Fili felt as though he were looking at a stranger, and he opened his mouth, but could find no words to say.

"Well?" Kili asked. "Will you let me sleep, or not?"

"Of course," Fili said. "Of course you should sleep."

But he stood and stared at the door for a long time after it closed.

* * *

"Hm, what?" said Oin when Fili tapped him on the shoulder. "Who's there?" He turned frowning mightily and reaching for his ear-trumpet - or perhaps for his axe. Fili raised his hands in apology.

"You didn't hear me come in," he said, as loudly as he could without shouting.

"Always sneaking around, you young folk," Oin said, and, having found his ear-trumpet, jammed it into his ear. "Now, what do you want? Are you sickening for something?"

"Not I," Fili said. "I came to talk about Kili."

"Again?" Oin said, not caring to hide his exasperation. "I've never known a dwarf to fret so - and about nothing at all! I told you, lad, Kili's wound will trouble him from time to time, just as yours will, and you'll just have to learn to live with that."

But Fili shook his head. "No, not his leg," he said. "I came about the fever."

"Fever?" Oin asked. "He has a fever, now, does he?"

And at this, Fili's heart sank, to know that his brother had lied to him. "He said he spoke to you about it."

"Not-" Oin began, and then frowned in thought. "Oh, aye," he said. "That fever. Weeks ago, wasn't it? Three weeks?"

Fili found himself without words, but when Oin began to frown, he recovered himself. He would need Oin's help later, of that he had little doubt; but for now, until he had understood what it was that was causing Kili's behaviour, he had no desire to bring his kin into the situation. "Yes," he said. "Yes, three weeks, I think. What - he couldn't remember what you told him to do?"

"It was simple enough," Oin said with a snort. "That brother of yours will forget his beard one day - assuming he ever grows one." And he laughed uproariously and slapped his knee. "Willow bark, lad," he continued when he had exhausted his mirth. "Fevers and headaches, willow bark is the best remedy. And sleep. I told him if he didn't right himself in a day or two, to come straight back. But now, why're you asking? He must be long recovered by now."

"Of course," Fili replied, perhaps with a little too much haste, though if Oin noticed, he gave no sign. "We were arguing, that was all. He swore that nettle tea was the best for a fever, and that you'd told him so."

"Nettle tea!" Oin cried. "Why, the lad's got a head full of feathers, I'd swear to it before Mahal himself."

"I'll be sure to tell him you said so," said Fili, anxious, now, to put and end to the conversation.

"Aye, you do that," Oin replied, and turned back to his work bench, tutting loudly. "Nettle tea, indeed," he muttered.

* * *

This time, when Fili knocked on Kili's door, there was no answer. Yet he felt in his heart, just as he felt the comforting weight of the mountain around him, that his brother was inside, silent, listening. He knocked again, and into that listening silence he spoke.

"Kili," he said. "Kili, it's me. Kili, please. Amad is ill. She's asking for you."

The silence settled back over him, and he held his breath. Held it, and held it, and-

There. The shuffle of footsteps and the scrape of the lock, and the door slid open a crack. But this time, Fili did not wait and worry on the wrong side of the door. This time, he shoved forward with all his dwarvish strength the moment the door began to move, and was inside the room before Kili, staggering back from the force of his charge, had the chance to recover.

"Three weeks," he said, rounding on Kili, who had staggered back a few feet and was staring at him with round eyes. "Three weeks you've been feverish, Oin said. Three _weeks_."

Kili stared at him, mouth open in shock. And shock, too, was what Fili felt once he had said his piece and took the time to truly look at what was before him, for he saw his brother in the light for the first time, and a sorry sight it was, indeed. Here, in the flickering light of the single oil lamp, it was clear indeed that Kili was ill: he was pale and haggard, eyes shadowed and cheeks hollowing, and his hair hung lank around his face. And that was not all, for now Fili looked around him and saw his uncle Frerin's rooms for the first time, and he saw not rich, commodious apartments such as those that Kili had left behind, but a rubble-strewn floor, filth-streaked walls hung with rotting tapestries, an ash-choked fireplace that had surely not been lit since before the dragon came. What furniture there once might have been was now a pile of broken wood in the corner, and all there was to replace it was Kili's bed and a low table which bore the lamp. It was no place for a fevered dwarf, nor yet a healthy one, for it was cold and dark and devoid of any form of comfort.

"Kili," Fili said then, turning back to his brother. "What has happened to you?"

And Kili took another step back and shook his head.

"I'm fine," he said. "I'm fine. It's a different fever, I swear. I have had two in three weeks, that is all."

"Two in three weeks?" Fili said. He stepped forward, and Kili stepped back. "That is more than you have had in three years before. And - and you said Thorin told you to move here. Here, Kili." He gestured at the grim scene that surrounded him. "This place is not fit to stable a horse."

"I haven't had a chance to clean it yet," Kili said. He paused and stared. "Amad isn't ill, is she?"

"No," Fili said. But even as Kili opened his mouth to speak, Fili lunged forward, seizing his brother by the wrists before he could step back again. Kili drew in a sharp breath and tried to tear himself away, but he seemed to have no strength in him, and Fili wrestled him closer, meaning to put a hand to his brow, to see how high his fever might be. Yet even as he pulled Kili sharply forward, Kili stumbled, and fell against the bed. And as his leg struck the edge of the bed frame, he let out a strangled cry of pain that had Fili's stomach turning over within him.

"What was that?" Fili demanded, arresting Kili's fall and pushing him onto the bed. "Are you hurt?"

"Nothing," Kili replied, his eyes stretching wider still. "Nothing, nothing, Fili, I just fell badly. It's nothing, nothing at all."

But the note of desperation in his voice convinced Fili that something was wrong more than a full-hearted affirmation would have done, and he seized his brother's foot and tore at his bootstraps, scrabbling to drag the leg of his breeches up enough to see the skin. Kili fought him, trying to push his hands away, but even if he had been at full strength, he had never been a match for Fili when Fili was determined. And determined he was, determined and angry and afraid.

Afraid he was, but the fear he felt when the source of his brother's pain was still unknown was nothing to the fear he felt when it was revealed. For at last, he uncovered the site where the injury must be, tearing Kili's breeches in the process, and what he saw there had him sitting back in shock. The pale flesh of Kili's leg was marred by a broad, black blotch, oval in shape, though ill-defined at its edges. It seemed to pulse and shift under his skin, as if alive, and tiny black threads reached out from it in all directions, down towards Kili's foot, up towards his heart. It was repulsive, ugly somehow in ways that could not be explained by appearance alone, and the sight of it struck Fili through the heart with a cold, sickening terror.

Kili seized his breeches leg as soon as Fili let go of it, pulling it back down over his knee. "It's a bruise," he said, fingers fumbling with the cloth. "It's a bruise, I walked into, into a, a table. It's a bruise, that's all, it's just a bruise. It's nothing."

Fili stared at him, and the horror he felt must have showed on his face, for Kili's shoulders sank and his expression slipped from panic into despair.

"Fili?" he whispered.

"That is no bruise, my brother," Fili said, when at last he could speak. It was not quite the same this time - there was no wound, no broken place on Kili's skin where the evil filth of the morgul blade could be seen leaking from him - and yet there was no mistaking what it was, not for Fili, whose worst nightmares had been filled with the sight and smell of it ever since that long, dreadful night in Lake-Town.

And Kili - stripped at last of any words of denial - reached out and pressed a hand to his knee, as if by covering it he could pretend that there was nothing there to fear. He kept his eyes fixed on Fili's face, so wide now that they seemed to bulge in his head.

"I don't know what to do," he said.


End file.
